Always Alice
by WeepingAngelXIII
Summary: Set in an alternate universe when the events of "Through the Looking Glass" never took place and Alice has grown up and has children of her own before she remembers the old looking glass that used to hang in her house as a child.
1. The Beginning

**Just to clarify, before I begin, the writing in italics was written by Lewis Carroll and not me. The beginning is from "Alice in Wonderland" and the poem, "A Boat Beneath A Sunny Sky" was written in "Through the Looking Glass".**

**The Beginning...**

"_Lastly, she pictured to herself how this same little sister of hers would, in the after-time, be herself a grown woman; and how she would keep, through all her riper years, the simple and loving heart of her childhood: and how she would gather about her other little children, and make their eyes bright and eager with many a strange tale, perhaps even with the dream of Wonderland of long ago: and how she would feel with all their simple sorrows, and find a pleasure in all their simple joys, remembering her own child-life and the happy summer days."_

Alice closed the book and looked down at her daughter. Charlotte seemed to have just drifted off to sleep. Alice smiled and put the book down quietly on the bedside table, leaning to kiss her child's forehead. A quiet breeze ruffled the curtains and Alice walked over to close it slightly. The murmur of the stream outside reached her ears and glinted in the light of the setting sun.

_A boat beneath a sunny sky_

_Lingering onward dreamily_

_In an evening of July._

Alice pulled the window too slightly and looked back at the little girl asleep in the bed. She smiled, and walked across the room, turning off the light she had been using to read the story to her daughter and went to leave. Charlotte was the youngest, she had two other daughters and all three of them liked to hear her stories.

_Children three that nestle near_

_Eager eye and willing ear_

_Pleased a simple tale to hear._

"Mummy." The little voice spoke from out of the semi-dark, light still pouring through the window from behind the curtain. Alice turned to see that Charlotte had opened her eyes and was watching her closely. Alice smiled at her.

"What is it, Charlotte?" she asked, turning back and sitting on the edge of the bed beside her daughter.

"What was it like?" she asked.

"What was what like?"

"Wonderland," replied the child, looking up at her mother. Alice smiled.

"Odd," she said. "Nothing was ever what it seems."

"Did you ever go back?" Alice smiled and shook her head.

"No," she said. "No, I didn't."

"Did you ever want to?" Alice considered.

"Maybe," she said. "But it's too long now." Alice shivered with slight cold and walked over to the window to close it.

_Long has paled that sunny sky_

_Echoes fade and memories die_

_Autumn frosts have slain July._

"I think you still could." Alice smiled and looked back around at Charlotte, who had sat up again to watch her mother. Alice came back over and sat on the bed.

"You are so much like me in some ways, Charlotte," she said. "Now sleep. You could go to Wonderland yourself in my place." She kissed her forehead. "Now go to sleep." She stood up again, but Charlotte spoke again.

"Mummy?"

"Yes, darling?"

"What can you see behind the looking glass?"

_Still she haunts me, phantomwise  
Alice moving under skies  
Never seen by waking eyes._

Alice looked back to her daughter feeling confused.

"What do you mean?" she asked, looking puzzled.

"Can you see the room behind the looking glass?" asked Charlotte again. Alice smiled. Of course. Charlotte was definitely a lot like her.

"Do you mean the one that looks exactly like this one but the other way around?" she asked. She thought back to her life as a child when she had thought of going through the looking glass. It was interesting. In fact the looking glass that hung on the wall inside her daughter's room was from the house she had lived in as a child. Alice remembered talking to one of Dinah's kittens about it when she was Charlotte's age. Sometimes she'd say that she wished that she could pass right through into the looking glass world. She'd never actually done it though.

_Children yet, the tale to hear  
Eager eye and willing ear  
Lovingly shall nestle near._

But surprisingly, Charlotte shook her head.

"No," she said. "There's another room. Look, Mummy." Alice crossed over to the looking glass and looked into it. "What can you see, Mummy?"  
"Well," said Alice. "I see you, and the bed, me of course, the bedside table, the lamp and Mr. Carroll's book..."

"No, the other room," said Charlotte. "Can you see it?" Alice looked back and sighed. Then she saw the room changing. The room that now was before her was a reflection of the room of which the mirror had hung before: the looking glass room from when she was a child with all its old furniture, the chess set, the book case and even down to the little clock on the mantelpiece. But none of this was as amazing as the girl who smiled back at Alice from the mirror.

"The girl in the looking glass world... is it you, Mummy?" Alice nodded in response to her daughter and the little Alice nodded with her. "Is the looking glass world like Wonderland, Mummy?" Alice smiled.

"It could be," she said. "I've never been." Charlotte looked curious.

"Why not go?" she asked.

_In a Wonderland they lie  
Dreaming as the days go by  
Dreaming as the summers die._

Alice smiled and shook her head.

"I don't think I can anymore," she sighed. "I'm too old for the Wonderland and worlds of a child's mind."

"But you are special, Mummy," said Charlotte. "You've been to Wonderland. You could go to the looking glass world if you want."

"Charlotte..."

"Try, Mummy, try," the girl pleaded. Alice looked at the little Alice in the mirror and the world she had missed out on as a child. She laid her hand against the glass, but it stayed solid.

_Ever drifting down the stream..._

"Try, Mummy!" Alice pressed harder against the glass. It was not going to let her through. She was too old now. She had grown up too much.

_Lingering in the golden gleam..._

"Try." Little Alice in the mirror had mouthed the word with her and Alice suddenly felt renewed. Yes. Charlotte was right. She could go through that mirror if she wanted, into the looking glass world. She was always Alice and had been to Wonderland. One looking glass would not stop her. Alice closed her eyes and wished, as the glass misted beneath her fingers.

_Life..._

She took a breath and put her hand through into the other Alice's open hand.

_...what is it..._

She slipped through the glass and felt at once like a child again.

_...but a dream? _

Alice opened her eyes... She'd done it.


	2. Intermediate Thoughts: The Looking Glass

**Intermediate Thoughts: The Looking Glass Room**

Alice felt like a child again as she jumped down from the mantelpiece and onto the floor of the old room. She did not stand as tall as she had done before, and her clothing was different: a little girl once again. Alice turned back to the looking glass and noticed that the other room that she had left behind had vanished and what was visible was her old drawing room. Alice smiled and then examined her own face. A seven year old little girl smiled back at her. Alice reached forwards to the glass and laid her hand upon that of her reflection's.

"Curiouser and curiouser," she said out loud to herself. "I feel almost as if I _was_ seven years old." She drew her hand back down from the mirror and looked closely into the grinning face to the clock on the mantelpiece. She smiled back at it and then turned to see the room around her.

"It's just like the old drawing room," she thought. "Only everything is the other way around."

Alice stepped into the room to look around. It was still just as she remembered it, even down to the books and pictures on the walls. A set of chess men stood on a table in the corner, as Alice bent down to look at them.

Everything just as she remembered. It was amazing. Alice skipped around the room laughing.

"Oh how fun will it be when they see me through the glass in here and can't get at me!" she called. Her voice was young too. Even as she merely lingered in the room her old life seemed to be slipping away from her, like a dream upon waking. Charlotte's face was disappearing in her mind, as were her other daughters and her husband. Alice considered, trying to picture the faces of her two sisters, Lorina and Edith. She could see them in her head as girls, but not older. It seemed almost as if this Looking Glass World was where she really belonged, and the dream was her life as an adult. Could it be? Maybe. She might ask someone who may know later. This whole house could be quite different to her old house. The room she stood in was not even the same for example. Only the things that could be seen in the looking glass were not very interesting, but everything else (like the clock Alice had examined earlier) was very different.

Alice walked back over to the chess men and examined them closely.

"'_They don't keep this room as tidy as the other'..._


End file.
